


Leaving Fate Behind

by flipflop_diva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes happily ever after isn't so happy after all. But if Mary Margaret is lucky, this won't be the end of her dreams. Set after episode 2.09 so slight spoilers up to there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Fate Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HannaM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannaM/gifts).



> HannahM, I really enjoyed writing this for you. I hope you like it!

It starts with a fight, the first major one Mary Margaret and David have had since their memories returned.

It starts out simple enough. He comments that it is silly to look for a house when they already have a home to go back to. She replies that she thought this _was_ their home.

Twenty minutes later and it is hushed accusations and seething glares and blinking back tears. He never wanted to stay here and he can’t understand why she does. She doesn’t understand how he can’t comprehend that their life is here and there is nothing to go back to anyway.

He’s ready to fight. She’s tired of the battle. 

Not to mention she doesn’t think Emma would agree to come with them.

But none of that comes across. It’s just hurtful words and snide remarks, and then she is shutting the door quietly behind her (so as not to wake their sleeping daughter and grandson) and hurrying down the street, not knowing where she is going but just wanting to get away.

•••

_The first time it happened was accidental. It was late, and the room was pitch black. The moon and the stars were out there somewhere, but the trees and the clouds were blocking them, so everywhere she looked, she could see only more darkness._

_They had said goodnight to Granny hours ago, but Snow couldn’t sleep. Her mind was racing, filled with thoughts of her father and Regina and where she was going to go now and what she was going to do._

_The only thing that was calming her was the girl next to her. She was warm in her sleep, her body pressed up against Snow’s in the little bed. Her breathing was deep and even and somehow very calming._

_Snow found herself moving closer to her, almost as if she were drawn there, as if Red were somehow magnetic, until she found herself face to face with the sleeping girl._

_She didn’t realize Red had opened her eyes — after all, she couldn’t really see anything in the blackness — but it only took her a few moments before she could feel the piercing stare coming from the person beside her._

_She should have been uncomfortable or awkward or anything but comfortable. But she wasn’t. Instead, she felt warm and safe. And when Red shifted just a bit closer, Snow found her lips on the other girl’s._

_It was quick and gentle, soft and tender. It was over in a second, and then Red’s deep breathing filled the air once more._

_In the morning, neither girl mentioned it, not even when they awoke cuddled in each other’s arms. Snow thought she might have imagined it. Except when she put her fingers to her own lips and felt the lingering trace of Red’s touch, she knew she hadn’t._

•••

She finds Ruby outside the diner, standing in the street, limbs stretched, muzzle in the air. Mary Margaret hadn’t been looking for her, or for anyone, really, but when she sees the familiar wolf, a rush of relief fills her body.

Even in her wolf form, Ruby knows something is wrong. A few minutes later, the red cape placed securely over her shoulders, and Ruby is leading Mary Margaret inside, heating up the coffee pot, telling Mary Margaret to take a seat, right there at the counter.

Ruby dishes up pie and pours up coffee and takes a seat next to Mary Margaret, lifting her own cup to her lips. 

She doesn’t ask. Mary Margaret doesn’t offer. She does, however, feel strangely comforted just by Ruby’s presence.

•••

_The next time it happened was a little less accidental. It had been a long couple of days. Red had found her mother, or at least someone who had claimed to be her mother. Snow had her doubts but she didn’t want to voice them. It didn’t matter now anyway. Red had chosen her, and Snow felt like she owed her a debt of gratitude that she could never repay._

_“You saved my life,” Snow said that night. They were sitting around a campfire, a makeshift resting spot for the evening._

_Red looked up and frowned slightly. “Of course I did,” she said. “You’re my friend.”_

_“But your mother …”_

_Red frowned more. “You’re my best friend,” she said._

_“Still,” Snow said, “that couldn’t have been easy. Thank you.”_

_Red didn’t answer. Instead, she just reached out, touched Snow’s jaw lightly. Her fingers were warm even in the cold night air. Snow wondered if it had to do with the wolf inside her._

_Snow could feel Red’s breath blowing softly across her face. She shivered slightly in the cold._

_Red moved her hand, entwining it in Snow’s long, dark locks._

_“I can’t imagine not having you in my life,” Red breathed. It was so quiet Snow almost thought she had imagined it. She flicked her eyes up, so she could stare into Red’s._

_No, she hadn’t imagined it. She knew that without a doubt._

_The way Red was looking at her, touching her …_

_Snow reached up, covered Red’s fingers with her own._

_“I can’t imagine not having you in my life either,” she said, and then she leaned in. The kiss this time was just as soft, just as gentle as before, but now it was sweeter._

_Snow moved her lips against Red’s and felt the other girl respond. A warmth spread through Snow’s body as she moved her hand from where she was grasping Red’s to instead wrap both her arms around the other girl, tugging her a little to get her to move in closer._

_Red complied, her fingers still snaking through Snow’s hair._

_“This is nice,” Red murmured._

_Snow agreed._

•••

They sit there for hours, eating their pie, drinking their coffee, breathing in the silence. Mary Margaret knows Ruby is dying to ask, but to her credit, she never does.

The sun comes up and the hum in the streets grows louder. The first customer enters for the day and Mary Margaret moves herself and her coffee to a small table by the window. Rudy goes about her daily waitress routine.

Neither talks to the other, except when Ruby asks her if she wants a refill, but a sense of understanding hangs in the air between them. An hour after the diner opens, Mary Margaret slips out and heads home, but she knows they both know she will be back.

•••

_The third, and last, time it happened, none of it was on accident nor unintentional. It started with small kisses and gentle touches that turned deeper and sweeter and more loving._

_The night air was chilly, but when their dresses dropped to the floor and their bare skin met, Snow had never felt warmer._

_They both took their time, tasting, touching, exploring, making sure the other knew what this meant. When it was over, they wrapped their arms around each other and let sleep take them elsewhere._

_It was the most perfect night either one of them had ever had._

_But the morning sun came, as it always did, dissolving all traces of the night before and bringing with it a prince who took Snow’s breath away._

_Her happily ever after was waiting just around the corner, and when you lived in a land of fairytales, it was your destiny to go after it._

•••

Mary Margaret comes back every night for a week, leaving her apartment at the same time each day, making her way down the deserted streets, slipping into the empty diner that has been left open and taking her seat at the counter, staring into space and contemplating her life until Ruby appears from the back with coffee and pie or cake or pastries. They barely talk, just an utterance here and there, but for the most part, it’s enough.

Until the seventh night.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Mary Margaret says. They are eating cherry pie, and Mary Margaret notices how bright the red is against the soft white of the plates.

Ruby looks up from her own pie, nods. Her eyes are expressionless, though her face conveys that she saw this coming.

“I’m running out of pies anyway,” she says.

“No,” Mary Margaret says. “That’s not what I mean.”

Ruby puts her fork down, folds her hands in her lap, stares at Mary Margaret intently.

“I can’t keep pretending,” Mary Margaret says. “Not even for Henry and Emma. This isn’t the life that I want.”

She looks at Ruby, reaches out and takes her hand.

“We could make it work,” she says, and she knows that sounds crazy.

“I don’t think we could,” Ruby answers, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.

“We could try,” Mary Margaret says, and she leans in, closes her eyes, brushes her lips over Ruby’s, and suddenly they are back in the woods, touching each other for the first time, limbs tangled together, everything warm and soft and loving,

Mary Margaret opens her eyes, stares into Ruby’s dark orbs. She knows Ruby felt it, too.

“Isn’t it worth a shot?” she says.

“It’s not that easy,” Ruby says, “and you know it.”

“I know it’s not,” Mary Margaret says. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

The door to the diner opens behind them. The first customer of the day slides in. Ruby jumps up to serve him, and Mary Margaret finds her table by the window.

Neither of them speaks another word to each other the rest of the morning, and an hour later, as if on cue, Mary Margaret heads home.

She’s an hour late that night. Ruby is waiting for her with another piece of cherry pie and a cup filled to the brim with coffee.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Ruby says as Mary Margaret sits down.

“I know,” Mary Margaret says.

“We might lose everything.”

“I know.”

“This probably isn’t the fairy tale ending we’re supposed to have.”

“I know.”

Ruby leans across the counter, places her lips over Mary Margaret’s, kisses her deeply.

“But I’m willing to try,” she says, and Mary Margaret smiles.

That is all she has ever needed to hear.


End file.
